I was trying to follow a friend's flight from SFO (San Francisco) to LAS (Las Vegas) today using LiveATC, and I noticed that only three of maybe 30 Oakland Center sectors appear to be on LiveATC at present. I was using this map of Oakland Center frequencies to make that statement:

I lost my friend's flight as they were passed into one of the missing Oakland Center sectors, then regained them on LAS Approach.

Is it generally the case on LiveATC that only a fraction of the regional center frequencies are being covered? This is a function of the fact that to cover a frequency there needs to be some generous end user out there who tunes the frequency 24x7 and then feeds it to LiveATC's servers?

Looking forward, how soon would the site likely have coverage of most of the Oakland Center frequencies?

I was trying to follow a friend's flight from SFO (San Francisco) to LAS (Las Vegas) today using LiveATC, and I noticed that only three of maybe 30 Oakland Center sectors appear to be on LiveATC at present. I was using this map of Oakland Center frequencies to make that statement:

I lost my friend's flight as they were passed into one of the missing Oakland Center sectors, then regained them on LAS Approach.

Is it generally the case on LiveATC that only a fraction of the regional center frequencies are being covered? This is a function of the fact that to cover a frequency there needs to be some generous end user out there who tunes the frequency 24x7 and then feeds it to LiveATC's servers?

Looking forward, how soon would the site likely have coverage of most of the Oakland Center frequencies?

Since the feeds are generally dealing with scanners sitting on the ground, the scanner in question has to have line of sight with the facility or repeater in the area. In this case, I can easily say that the missing feed was probably between 132.95, and ZLA's HI sector in that area, which would be 124.62. Unless someone has a feed set up in or around the area of that repeater for those frequencies, you probably won't hear them.

CAVEAT: You will just about always have line of sight with the pilot, unless they are completely out of your scanner's range, and I don't know if you could hear that frequency if you were near the facility (ZOA Center), as it would be the source. I doubt it, though.

That would square with the PORTE3 departure out of KSFO, heading to CZQ (Fresno). So you would have lost it in sectors 13, 15, and 33, before ZLA picks it up on 124.62. Unless someone has a feed set up in that area, or around KFAT, you'll be out of luck until the flight hits L30..

Is it generally the case on LiveATC that only a fraction of the regional center frequencies are being covered? This is a function of the fact that to cover a frequency there needs to be some generous end user out there who tunes the frequency 24x7 and then feeds it to LiveATC's servers?

Yes and you need to have monitors spread out over the listening area to be able to capture a good signal where you hear both sides of the conversation. I provide the feed for Sector 35 from my house in Fremont. The only 2 other sectors that I get both sides of the conversation from are sectors 40 and 41. There is another feed that already covers those along with sector 35. I run a separate feed for Sector 35 since that is the sector of primary interest to me since it covers all the inbound and outbound trans pacific flights. I also have included frequencies for Beaver Control who are the military controllers who control the restricted military airspace of the coast of Central California. I would love to provide feeds for more sectors if I could receive them but unfortunately I cannot from my location. I do however provide a feed for Moffett Field (NUQ) from my house.

BTW, It is not difficult to provide a feed to LiveATC.net. You just need a dedicated scanner for the frequency that you want to provide a feed for (I use 2 old scanners that I paid $50 each for on ebay to provide my feeds) and an always on computer with an always on internet connection. The software is simple to set up on your computer and is provided for free from LiveATC. The software runs quietly in the background on my home computer. If my computer reboots for whatever reason, the software starts itself again automatically. Once you get it set up and running, that is it. Nothing else to do but leave your computer and scanner on all the time. Just set it and forget it. I run both my feeds off of one computer. I just needed to add a second sound card for the second feed.